China producer prices rise 5.5 percent in June

BEIJING — China’s producer price index (PPI), which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, rose 5.5 percent year on year in June, flat with the pace in May, official data showed on July 10.

The 5.5-percent rise marked the end of continued declines in PPI growth pace since February this year. In the first half of 2017, PPI averaged 6.6 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Factory-gate price inflation in the ferrous metal and nonferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industries expanded from a year earlier, while the price increases eased for the coal mining and dressing, petroleum processing, as well as petroleum and natural gas extraction industries, according to NBS senior statistician Sheng Guoqing.

Month on month, PPI edged down 0.2 percent in June, narrowing from the 0.3-percent decline in May, NBS data showed.

China’s PPI has stayed in positive territory since September, when it ended a four-year streak of declines, partly due to the government’s successful campaign to cut industrial overcapacity, which benefited the wider economy.

The PPI figures came alongside the release of the consumer price index, which rose 1.5 percent year on year in June, flat with the pace in May.